Indian Navy chief resigns :

[Yusuf]

for sometime, but good thing which might come out of it is that, Govt will super speed up process of pending plans, may be some immediate purchases in the pipeline so that this sub fleet problem can be address.

You think?

 

[pkroyal]

All of this is part of a deeper malaise

The politico-bureaucrat cosy club .

The service Chiefs are clearly out of the loop. To compound this, there are pet media lap dogs who carry the sound bytes of their masters ( read media honchos cosying with the politician) they carry sound bytes denigrating & demoralizing the services. ( Shekar Gupta - spooked ! )

An honourable man takes recourse to silence when there is too much noise .

Andheri nagri , chaupat raja ......... Kudos to CNS DK Joshi.

 

[hitesh]

Naval chief has resigned now onus is on chief of Western command to resign too ,as all the 8 incidence happened in the past 8 months were in the western sea He more responsible for the incident then the Navel chief . He has bin called to Delhi seems like me might resign too.

 

[sayareakd]

You think?

well bhai i always think positive. IN is positive force they are willing to invest in desi systems unlike other two sister organisations.

MOD has to speed up now. Plus local guys should come forward specially L&T.

 

[sayareakd]

Naval chief has resigned now onus is on chief of Western command to resign too ,as all the 8 incidence happened in the past 8 months were in the western sea He more responsible for the incident then the Navel chief . He has bin called to Delhi seems like me might resign too.

If he has any shame he would resign before end of the day or he should be saked.
Navy chief was not in direct control of these men but he has put in his papers,now the time for the man responsible to do the same or role his head.

 

[Yusuf]

V Adm Sinha western naval command to resign as well

 

[rajsking]

Sindhuratna: With Saints like Antony, give me a sinner anyday | Firstpost

If you had to make a choice between a saintly but incompetent leader and a not-so-saintly but competent one, which one would you choose? I am asking this question in the context of yesterday's naval mishap involving a fire on submarine INS Sindhuratna, which has seen the exit of the Navy Chief Admiral DK Joshi, who has chosen to take constructive responsibility for this and other mishaps under his watch. According to The Indian Express, in the last six months, the Indian Navy has seen nearly 10 disasters, the worst being the sinking of INS Sindhurakshak last August after a series of unexplained blasts near the Mumbai dockyard. It killed 18 navymen. Bieng a saint has done Anthony no good: PTI If the navy is busy sinking and damaging its own ships, who needs a navy? And do we need a saintly defence minister presiding over an accident-prone and self-destructive force of men in uniform? We can also pose the incompetent saint question in the larger context of the last 10 years. The UPA government is headed by Honest Manmohan and the defence ministry by Saint Antony. The honest PM-cum-Topnotch Economist has presided over India's largest scams and the destruction of economic growth; the Saint has mediated over the decimation of the prestige and power of India's armed forces where we destroy our own naval vessels, where our army is fighting with itself while China occupies our territory checking for weak links, the government panics over non-existent army coups, and the air force loses more aircraft to accidents that warfare. Nobody has ever accused Manmohan or Antony of ever taking a bribe, but honesty in one area of personal life is no good if it means letting malign influences taking control of the exchequer and playing ducks and drakes with the country's interests. In this sense, both Honest Manmohan and St Antony have been disasters - and possibly even dishonest. The chowkidar who looks the other way when the thief enters your house has no moral right to claim he didn't see the robbery - even if that is technically correct. Wilful blindness is dishonesty – and probably worse than the use of dishonest means to a desirable end. Salman Khurshid has kicked up a storm by calling Narendra Modi impotent with reference to 2002, but fails to see the consistent impotence of the UPA government in almost every area of governance – from politics to economics. While we can take the case against Honest Manmohan as proved beyond doubt (2G, Coalgate, CWG, and economic slowdown), especially since his own party has now dumped him, the case against St Antony the Incompetent has not been much talked about. St Antony's problem is not that he is honest and poor as a churchmouse, which he is, but he more that he is the mouse that doesn't roar when it needs to. And here, the Saint's failings are more than clear. Consider just a few of them:

One, in the controversy over the age of the previous army chief, Gen VK Singh, Antony let the issue fester till the only outcome possible was an ugly one. Clearly, Antony did not step in to find an amicable solution by either extending his tenure according to his stated age, or getting him to exit gracefully by offering him another post-retirement option. The net result was an army corps divided on communal lines.

Two The Indian Express hinted in a 2012 story that the defence ministry went into a panic when it found that two military units were moving towards Delhi in January 2012 just when the VK Singh affair was hitting the fan. It was later shown that the panic was the result of suspicious minds in the defence ministry. This should have alerted Antony to this simple fact: that relations between civilian bosses and military officers had sunk to a new low. But instead of arresting the situation, he let things slide further.

Three: the series of naval and air force disasters (four accidents involving Sukhois) should have alerted the Saint to the dangers of not attending to festering issues of defence acquisitions and modernisation, apart from the resultant low morale of the forces. But accident after accident – the Express counts 10 naval ones in the last six months, starting with the sinking of the INS Sindhurakshak in August 2013 – failed to alert him. In fact, budget constraints have led India to delay naval and air force modernisation and acquisition plans. The postponement of the Rafale fighter aircraft deal is one such case. This means the Indian Air Force is weaker too. There is no evidence that Antony fought tooth-and-nail to give his men in uniform the best equipment to fight with.

Four Antony made a fool of himself last August when, after the killing of five Indian soldiers on the line of control by Pakistani soldiers, he claimed that the dirty work was done by around 20 "heavily-armed terrorists along with persons dressed in Pakistan army uniforms". A day later, he changed his story to say that "specialist troops of Pakistan army were involved in the attack"¦". Clearly, the original story must have been prompted by the PMO's need to mend fences with Pakistan, and the corrected version came after the truth could no longer be hidden. Is this what a defence minister is supposed to do?

Five St Antony does not take bribes, but the evidence is that he does not act on issues that could involve hanky-panky either. Three cases come to mind.
#1: In the Agusta helicopter deal, where India signed up for 12 AW-101 helicopters for a price of €560 million (around Rs 4,600 crore), an Italian investigation has established that bribes amounting around €51 million may have been paid to middlemen. Though bribery was suspected as far back as in 2009, St Antony did nothing. It is only when the Italians ended up arresting Finmeccanica CEO Guiseppe Orsi that St Antony ordered a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe – which will probably go nowhere. Finmeccanica is the parent of AgustaWestland. Is it possible for any honest minister to not be aware of the fact that commissions are paid in such deal?
#2: It was the same with the Tatra army truck, where too kickbacks are alleged to have been paid. In 2012, Gen VK Singh, when he was army chief, disclosed that he was offered a Rs 14 crore bribe to okay the deal, and even reported this to Antony. But Antony did not act on it till the general talked to the media about it.
#3: In the run-up to the 2009 general elections, a big newsbreak involved the payment of a huge "commission" in a Rs 10,000 crore defence deal involving Israel Aerospace Industries. As we noted before, Antony's ministry allowed the Israeli firm to bill a huge Rs 600 crore as "business charges", and failed to kick up a storm over this clause in the agreement.

Note the timing of the deal: it was signed in February 2009, just weeks before the UPA government announced dates for the May general elections. Is it possible for any honest minister to not be aware of the contours of the commission and the deal? Where did the commission money go? What were the business charges incurred? For a much smaller payment of Rs 64 crore, Rajiv Gandhi got himself entangled in the Bofors controversy. He could never wash off the stigma. But a Rs 600 crore payment under St Antony has completely gone under the radar

The problem with mere honesty without competence is that you can neither be honest nor deliver the right results. In an imperfect world it may not be possible to have a corruption-free defence establishment, but surely we can have a competent one where corruption is minimised and our armed forces are safe? Rajiv Gandhi may have got singed by the Bofors deal, but at least he got us the right guns – which proved their worth at Kargil. Honest Manmohan and St Antony have just told us that if it is a straight choice between saintly incompetence plus impotence, and not-so-saintly competence, we should choose the latter. Between a Manmohan and a Pranab Mukherjee or P Chidambaram, I would choose any of the latter two. Anyday.

 

[ladder]

What explanation you need"¦ I'm operating subs 24-25 yrs old. We need replacements

Naval Chief D K Joshi quit on Wednesday evening after an acrimonious exchange with Defence Minister A K Antony over Wednesday's fire on board submarine Sindhuratna that left six sailors injured and two missing.

While the defence minister -- who had accused the Navy in August last year of frittering away national resources after a series of blasts sunk submarine Sindhurakshak --sought an explanation from Joshi, the naval chief blamed the ageing fleet for the mishaps and said the only solution was quick replacements.

The defence minister, however, was not satisfied with the reply and wanted to know the reasons behind the mishaps taking place under Joshi's charge. At this point, Joshi said that if the minister thought it was his leadership responsible for the mishaps then he would like to step down.

Highly placed sources said Defence Secretary R K Mathur was also present at this meeting and he too posed pointed questions to Joshi, stopping short of blaming him for the accidents.

Joshi sent his resignation soon after returning to his office and it was promptly accepted.

Former naval officers while appreciating Joshi's decision to own moral responsibility for the mishaps and quitting said the civil leadership too cannot escape the blame. "The naval chief is not directly responsible for the mishaps. It's a fact that subs with the Indian Navy are old and ageing. Both Sidhurakshak and Sindhuratna were extensively retrofitted. Whose responsibility is it to find replacements," said a former navy chief who did not wish to be identified.

Admiral Devendra Kumar Joshi took over as the 21st Chief of Naval Staff from Adm Nirmal Verma on August 21, 2012.

A specialist in anti-submarine warfare, it's ironical the way his career ended. In his service spanning nearly 38 years, he has served in a variety of Command, Staff and Instructional appointments, including commanding guided missile corvette INS Kuthar, guided missile destroyer INS Ranvir and aircraft carrier INS Viraat.

Meanwhile, the defence minister is likely to cancel a programme on Saturday wherein Shore Based Test Facility designed and built by Aeronautical Development Agency at the INS Hansa, Goa was to be inaugurated.

What explanation you need"¦ I'm operating subs 24-25 yrs old. We need replacements - Mumbai Mirror

 

[ThilakManohar]

Its really feeling bad that the anti submarine warfare specialists retires due to mishap of submarines.....

 

[ubuntu]

We should ban 25 year old subs.they are becoming underwater coffins like mig-21

 

[rock127]

Indian Navy needs a big transformation regarding new toys.

The SUPER CORRUPT ANTI-NATIONAL and COMMUNAL Govt is responsible.

 

[Sea Eagle]

Indian Navy needs a big transformation regarding new toys.

The SUPER CORRUPT ANTI-NATIONAL and COMMUNAL Govt is responsible.

It does not matter to the pseudo secular forces. Who cares, The RM didn't even say anything new just same old thing "Very Sad To Hear This".

Ek chala gaya dusra Aajayega

 

[anoop_mig25]

Well I wished once shekar gupta article about coup was real and there should have coup......

On other hand i wished all leading chiefs either that of army , navy and air force should have been resigned....

That i wished would have jolted GoI of day....

But then we have deaf GoI

 

[rock127]

Well I wished once shekar gupta article about coup was real and there should have coup......

On other hand i wished all leading chiefs either that of army , navy and air force should have been resigned....

That i wished would have jolted GoI of day....

But then we have deaf GoI

This would add more to troubles of Congress who is gonna lose big time soon.

 

[Sea Eagle]

Admiral Joshi's Firm Support Bailed Out Many Desi Defense Project :

Tarmak007 -- A bold blog on Indian defence: Admiral Joshi's firm support bailed out many desi defence projects

Good read..

 

[rajsking]

Major mishaps happened in kilo class subs - and it was related to battery. I see a trend here.

wonder, if, in the name of indigenous efforts - sub-standard batteries were used - whenever these subs were last overhauled.

Delay in changing submarine batteries could have led to smoke on submarine INS Sindhuratna

Red tape has crippled the blue water capabilities of the Indian Navy, and the nation is now paying in blood for it. A shortage of submarine batteries after the Ministry of Defence (MoD) objected to the acquisition process may well be the starting point of the series of unfortunate events that resulted in the INS Sindhuratna mishap early on Wednesday.
Sources say that the batteries on the INS Sindhuratna were not changed during its refit that ended in December 2013. The facts that are now surfacing from the depths of the Arabian Sea point to running the ill-fated submarine on ageing batteries as the likeliest reason for the explosion that claimed the lives of two officers and injured seven sailors earlier this week.

The INS Sindhuratna is a diesel-electric vessel, and runs on battery power while submerged. That power is provided by 240 lead acid batteries that weigh about 800 kg each. These batteries tend to release flammable hydrogen gas, especially when they are being charged, and submarines have safety systems to address emergencies arising out of this. Old batteries are even worse.

The high level probe ordered by the Navy under Flag Officer (Submarines) Rear Admiral S.V. Bokhare will go into various aspects of accident. It will be centred on finding the cause of explosion in the battery compartment that triggered the release of toxic gases.

The INS Sindhuratna was powered by Russian batteries during the early years of its life in the Indian Navy. Later, the Navy began procuring batteries from an established Indian vendor, Mumbai-based Standard Batteries Limited, later bought out by Exide. The Navy has bought batteries from Standard for a long time, and the two have had a smooth working relationship.

Somewhere down the line, however, the battery purchase process was hit by objections raised by HILIFE Batteries, a Hyderabad-based competitor. HILIFE took the Indian Navy to court, saying its products were superior and cheaper, and that it had been considered good enough to supply batteries for a DRDO submarine project. The MoD also intervened to end the "single vendor situation", a situation that is avoided in acquisition.

As the web of litigation grew, battery purchases were hit, sources say, adding that the INS Sindhuratna mishap was waiting to happen.

The Iranian Navy operates Kilo-class submarines of the same manufacturing batch as India's (see box) and uses Indian batteries that it replaces regularly. There has been no major mishap reported from Iran's Kilos, and that only points another finger at the old batteries on the INS Sindhuratna. The fact that the Navy is operating Kilo-class submarines for close to 30 years now, much beyond their lifespan, is also a reflection of the breakdown of perspective planning in the MoD.

As per the 30-year perspective plan for submarines, the Navy should have 24 new submarines by 2022. In fact, 12 submarines should have been inducted by 2012 if the plan had remained on track. It is tragic, say old submariners, that the MoD was well aware of the problem and did nothing. The submarine fleet is centred on 10 Russian Kilo class and four German HDW type 209 submarines. Nuclear-powered INS Chakra was acquired two years ago, the only addition in the last three decades.

The government has been told several times about the teething problems in the construction of six French Scorpene submarines which has delayed the entire acquisition programme. All the six Scorpenes are now expected to be inducted only by 2021. Kilo-class submarines of Soviet design are among the most silent-and proportionately deadly-vessels of their kind.

The Sindhuratna, commissioned into the Indian Navy in 1988, had undergone an extensive refit from May through December last year, and was being put through the second, submerged phase of trials that would certify it as operationally fit when disaster struck. The accidents involving two Kiloclass submarines within span of six months is now likely to speed up the plan for construction of a new line of underwater vessels.

Source: Delay in changing submarine batteries could have led to smoke on submarine INS Sindhuratna : North, News - India Today